Metaverse One

I can say it with confidence in 2015, "The 3D Web is finally here!"  I have been involved with and covered web3D tech for years but it has only been since last year's support of  WebGL  (a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D & 2D graphics) by all the major browser vendors that web3D is truly ubiquitous on all desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. Gone are the days of having to download and install a plugin or app to run interactive 3D content via the web. The super exciting thing for me is that this web3d tech development has created a groundwork within HTML5 for the highly anticipated 3D Web. What is the difference between web3D and the 3D Web you may ask? I see web3D as all tech related to the delivery and rendering of static and interactive 3D content on the Internet. Google Earth, World Of Warcraft, 3D online gaming, virtual surgery, and military simulations are some examples of web3D applications.  Unity3D ,  Flash ,  X3D-Edit , an...

Augmented reality has become quite the buzz word recently since mobile apps and print marketing are increasing the implementation of the technology to the mainstream. Well documented open source toolkits are allowing developers to create a swarm of AR applications that bring this way of accessing information to everything from your Android/iPhone to your Flash-based website. As with any emerging tech, there comes the time that the community (developers, hobbyist, entrepreneurs, businesses, academia, governments) has to come together to address and solve the issues needed to further advance the technology. So on December 5, 2009 was the first ever Augmented Reality Developer Camp held at the HackerDojo in Mountain View, California. " After nearly 20 years in the research labs, Augmented Reality is taking shape as one of the next major waves of Internet innovation, overlaying and infusing the physical world with digital media, information, and experiences. We believe AR must be f...

So lately I have been seeing more Data Matrix and QR code around. Data Matrix and QR code is a 2D barcode consisting of black and white "cells" or modules arranged in either a square or rectangular pattern that represent encoded information. Unlike augmented reality markers, data matrix code only represents text or raw data. Data Matrix (DM) symbols are rectangular in shape and usually square, they are made of cells: little elements that represent bits . Depending on the situation a "light" module is a 0 and a "dark" module is a 1, or vice versa. Every Data Matrix is composed of two solid adjacent borders in an "L" shape (called the "finder pattern") and two other borders consisting of alternating dark and light "cells" or modules (called the "timing pattern"). Within these borders are rows and columns of cells encoding information. The finder pattern is used to locate and orient the symbol while the timing pattern p...

This past weekend I attended my first iPhone Developer Camp. This year was the third annual iPhone Developer Camp , IDC 3, which was developers, UI designers, testers, and other that came to share ideas, collaborate, and make some pretty cool apps. The event encourages individuals at all levels to continue to stretch the development boundaries of the iPhone and iPod touch. Held in Sunnyvale at Yahoo's main campus, the main focus of the event seemed to be the Hackathon competition. Saturday and Sunday were nothing but people with heads down on computers as the Hackathon is an exhibition of attendee and those joining via web projects and was a showcase of some of the best iPhone and iTouch innovators. The event had great keynotes and even a musical guest BT who performed Friday night. He came back on Saturday to speak about his app called Sonifi . I have been playing with this $4.99 music mixing app and it is fun. It needs more songs as it only comes with one, but BT annou...

The Kira Institute , a nonprofit organization in Second Life, focuses on combining the elements of universality and personal involvement. Kira is exploring the use of virtual worlds to develop new forms of research and education, rooted in scientific and scholarly traditions but unconfined by the usual disciplinary and academic boundaries or by geographical limitations. Virtual worlds are media where professionals, amateurs, teachers, and students, from all over the globe, can engage in open dialog. In this setting, Kira facilitates peer based collaborations in fields as diverse as science, art, philosophy, and other ways of knowing. As their website describes it, science is basically universal in the way it is practiced, largely independent of nationality or personal belief system, where personal involvement is specifically discouraged. Systems aimed at developing and guiding personal aspirations, from religions to ideologies to humanistic programs, do encourage involvement, but at th...

The Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds ( FCVW ) consists of members from government (federal, state & local, & international), academia, and corporate sectors. The Consortium supports individuals and organizations to improve government collaboration through the use of virtual worlds to enrich collaborative online experiences. Although not heavily involved, I have enjoyed the interaction so far with this group. Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds from Eric Hackathorn . Although a good chunk of their work so far is presented in Second Life (as one can see in this video), there are a growing number from this group and other federal agencies that are looking at the current 3D web open standards for use. From those I talk to with federal agencies, open and standards are a must when dealing with serious government applications and funding sources. Uncle Sam isn't going to spend millions on developing training tools in SL or any other company owned platform. The GSA is a p...

This past weekend was the second iteration of Metaverse U put on by Henrik Bennetsen at Stanford University. The Metaverse U conference took place at Stanford University on May 29 th and 30 th . The goal of this years conference was to explore the cutting edge applications of virtual worlds and the open platforms that drive them. Henrik gathered an impressive lineup of speakers and I will embed their videos here once they go online. Some highlights from the presentations: Sirikata , Stanford's open source platform for virtual worlds, had a high representation this year with a demo that showed some of its editing features. Jeffrey T. Schnapp (Stanford University) talked about cultural heritage with virtual worlds stating "museums are the original 3D world" and the need to embrace (inter)active models of educational programming with an emphasis on bottom-up counterparts to traditional top-down approaches. John Hurliman (Intel) presented Cable Beach, a service based a...

Learning about the 3D web open standard has never really been an easy thing in the past. Tutorials were scattered over the web, the Web3D Consortium website didn't offer much help to those new to programming, there were few books that covered the open standard such as Core Web3D, the VRML 2.0 Handbook (great books), and no books that covered the new standard X3D. If you were a 3D modeler looking to author web3D content there were few tools out there to help you do it and none of these had in depth tutorials. As someone wanting to learn X3D, this is what drove me to get active with the Consortium eight years ago. I found there were students everywhere that wanted to learn web3D technologies for credit but where and how? So in the past it was difficult for newbies, but now this is no longer the case. In 2007 X3D: 3D Graphics for Web Authors by Don Brutzman and Leonard Daly was published. This book is highly recommended resource for programmers that makes learning X3D undauntin...

Wednesday March 4 th was the Web3D Consortium's 2009 Outreach/Member meeting at NASA Ames research facility. The focus of the event was to reach out to those industries that use web3D, educate, and continue dialogue for how the 3D web open standard X3D and the Web3D Consortium can assist with some of the issues they are having and collaborate to advance the growth of these domains. A quick recap, web3D is any form of real-time interactive 3D. This includes virtual worlds, mirror worlds, augmented reality, simulation, web3D/mixed reality applications, and more. The Outreach event had a good turnout with those from both the web3D space, the virtual worlds industry, mirror worlds, and several web3D students. Guest Speaker Jay Cee Straley from Sprint, presented us his insight on Web3D technology and standards for the mobile platform. He demonstrated some very cool applications of web3D and augmented reality for mobile devices. Don Brutzman ( NPS ) and I ran the X3D plugfest tha...

Web3DStudents is a collaboration between students and professionals in the outreach, education, and development of the 3D web, web3D applications, and the mixed reality Metaverse. Our work is funded by various web3D projects we do for corporate and private clients. This money keeps us living and the computers running while we teach, learn, promote, develop, and help others in their migration to the 3D web. 2009 marks an important year for us as we start a series of Web3D Industry sponsored student projects with some of the biggest names around. These projects are 3D web mash-ups and mixed reality applications that will showcase the power of the web3D open standard, be available for all to use, and documented so other web3D students can learn the how-to for their own projects. To show our commitment to world change beyond those affiliated with the 3D web, Web3DStudents members are pledging that a decent portion of all our private work contracts this year will go toward humanitarian aid...

So surfing around the 3D web I came across a pleasant surprise. Media giant Warner Bros. is among the early adopters that has migrated over to the emerging 3D web. Using a browser plug-in that supports the 3D web open standard, I experienced this great precedent for virtual movie theaters. The scene itself loads fast, is graphically impressive, very spacious, and easy to navigate around. The categories of movies offered is simple to identify and requires nothing more than walking into that genre's theater room. Once inside the room, which is a nice recreation of an actual theater, one can select a movie to browse using a search menu from a friendly user interface with a variety of different options. Click to activate, watch the curtains draw, and enjoy what is shown. I have to comment on the interactive movie posters that when clicked, play the movie's trailer and offer options for purchasing the movie on DVD or from Itunes. With the total experience I am very impressed, all a...